


All My Life

by synstruck



Series: our regrets and our atonement [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-20 23:46:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1530203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synstruck/pseuds/synstruck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People always told him this is normal. That everyone is looking for a soulmate. That everyone is looking for that special someone to share the rest of their life with.</p><p>“No,” he wanted to say. “No.”</p><p>This is different.</p><p>This yearning, this wasn't a yearning for a soulmate, for someone to share his life with.</p><p>All he knew is that he needed to find this person, to see them for himself, and that was enough. He just needed to find them, and that was it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All My Life

John Nichols had, for the entirety of his life, for as long as he could remember, felt a yearning.

The best way he had ever described it to anyone in his life was that it was this never-ending, all-encompassing need to meet a certain somebody. He had no idea who it was, he didn't even have a vague idea of the kind of person it was he felt this need to meet, or why he needed to meet them so badly.

He just... needed to find them.

The pull on his entire being to seek out this person, to see them again (again?) persisted through his childhood, through his teenage years, through his adult life.

John remembered that, as a kid, he'd ventured out a lot, made friends with a lot of other children. Always out and about and playing with someone new every week.

As a teen, he joined a lot of clubs, socialized with everyone he could in high school. He was blessed with good looks; pitch black hair, ice blue eyes, straight nose and a stunning smile helped him with his popularity with his peers. His face may have been a little on the long side, and John certainly had his fair share of “horse face” comments as a child, but he'd grown into his features as he entered puberty, and there was no end to girls (and boys) who would have given anything to catch his eye.

Yet he kept searching. Always, always looking for someone to do just that, to catch his eye. Someone who he could just look at, and his mind would tell him that “this was the person you've been looking for”.

People always told him this was normal. That everyone was looking for a soulmate. That everyone was looking for that special someone to share the rest of their life with.

“No,” John wanted to say. “No.”

This was different.

This yearning, this wasn't a yearning for a soulmate, for someone to share his life with.

All he knew was that he needed to find this person, to see them for himself, and that was enough. He just needed to find them, and that was it. (was it?)

But nobody understood.

Nobody understood, and he kept looking.

His yearning slowly begins to manifest as wanderlust, and as the days pass John finds himself itching to leave his little town, itching to leave and to explore and to see the world.

If it were up to him, he would have packed and left right after his highschool graduation, sold off what he could and took off with the bare minimum, with not much more than a week's worth of clothes and the barest of necessities. His parents asked that he at least complete his degree before he left the nest, however, and he held off his plans for a little while longer.

So he hunkered down, worked hard and earned his degree in Business and Mass Communications, graduating from university scarcely three years after he'd left highschool. He had held down a part time job while he studied, saving his funds for his planned adventure.

The moment he wasn't tied down to academia any longer, John sold off what he could of his belongings, stuck the money into his bank account, and left the rest of his stuff to his parents to use or give away.

And then, aged 21 and with his aching wings finally unbound, John Nichols flew the coop.

He travelled.

He hopped on a train that would take him out of his little town and into the closest city, dressed in well-worn jeans, a thick hoodie, comfortable sneakers and dark glasses over his eyes. He had the barest minimum of supplies he figured he could get away with while travelling; a few changes of clothes for each of the seasons, a pair of sandals, a few toiletries and a small medical kit, a small towel, a notebook and pen in a side pocket of his bag, a map tucked into his back pocket, his cellphone charger and iPad at the back of his bag, his passport tucked into his back pocket, a few hundred dollars in cash and his debit card in his wallet.

As the train pulled out of the station, his heart rattled against his ribcage, his stomach rolling in excitement.

His journey was finally beginning.

He pulled his phone out and sent his parents a quick text.

TO: Mom, Dad  
> _trains leaving. im on my way out. will check in with you soon. love you. -john_

The device buzzed a notification at him scarcely a minute after he hit send. The messages he saw tugged the corners of his lips up, and he smiled.

FROM: Mom  
> _Be safe, John. We love you._

FROM: Dad  
> _let us kno if u need anything ok? were here 4 u if u need us_

He missed them already. But he's finally setting out, finally giving in to the yearning, the wanderlust that had plagued him for so many years. He didn't regret this, and he wasn't going to start.

He slid the phone back into his pocket as he watched his little town shrink into the distance, framed by the setting sun. The train rumbled quietly beneath him as it rode the tracks out into the countryside, and the man let the gentle jerk and sway of the moving carriage to lull him into sleep until he reached the city.

John did not return to his little hometown for the next seven years.

He spent those years travelling across the country, occasionally foraying across the national border for a little while. He walked, he hitchhiked, he boarded buses and trains and planes to get from one place to another, never staying for more than a few months. Once he'd had his fill of his surroundings, once he had his fill of the people, he was off again, on his way onto somewhere newer, fresher, more exciting.

He worked small jobs, odd jobs, part time jobs along the way, took anything he can-- more for the chance to meet people than for the money itself. Sometimes he worked for free, volunteering or doing charity work just for the sake of seeing even more people. Having a salary though, however small, helped to keep his bank account padded for safety and emergencies and helped his wallet from being empty. It helped him plan for his next escape into the next town, into the next city, into the next state. Helped him to keep travelling, month after month, year after year.

His parents insisted on boosting his funds every so often, insisted on giving him a little bit of money from time to time. John knew they worried about him. He told them not to, because he's a grown man, he can handle himself. He told them that if he really runs into trouble, he'll let them know for sure. They have his number, he has their numbers, he still checks his emails and his twitter and as long as he was still tweeting he was still safe.

But he did let them spare him a few hundred dollars every few months, let them deposit that little bit into his bank account every now and then because he knew it helped them feel a little better, helped them know that at least he wasn't penniless and starving on the streets as he went.

He knew they wanted him to stop travelling and to go back. He knew they wanted him to come home, to get a proper job, to settle down comfortably, to get some stability in his life. He knew that they would even be happy if he'd settle down where he was, wherever he was, and stopped roaming from city to city the moment he bored of the people.

He knew they were worried that he was going to burn out early and die young.

He knew they were worried that something was going to happen to him out there. That they worry something will happen and they won't be able to help him, that they won't be there to help him, that they'll be too far away to help him.

But John enjoyed his life as it was. Wandering, rootless and free, helped soothe his burning wanderlust, helped dull the bite and the ache that was left behind by his yearning to find that unknown person he had spent his entire life searching for.

Eventually, however, enough was enough. He hadn't been home for years, hadn't seen his parents in person for a long time, hadn't set foot back in his home town since he started out.

So one day, John Nichols, age 28, decides to go back. He spent the last of his loose notes on a bus trip back home, and spent the eight hour journey staring out the window, examining the yearning still buried deep within him. Examining the pulling need that was running its chilly fingers over his heart again, clasping around it and chaining it to the town he had just left. He stamped the roiling in his stomach down.

He hadn't found the person he was looking for.

Maybe this person didn't exist, and maybe his mind was just playing tricks. Maybe all those people long ago telling him it was just the longing for a soulmate were right after all.

John sighed.

There were too many maybes, too many factors and variables for him to know for sure. Either way, it had been time spent out in the world, and even if he didn't get what he set out for, he still gained important, invaluable experiences, right? (right?)

No matter what, he wouldn't regret the seven years he spent travelling, sleeping in seedy motels and in backpackers hostels and on strangers' couches while he worked odd jobs, part time jobs, charity work and volunteering.

It was well after dark when the bus pulled into the depot in his home town, the trip having been delayed several hours due to a three car pileup on the highway and the following traffic jam that the accident caused. The city buses had long stopped doing their rounds, so John couldn't just bus home like he'd planned to originally, and he didn't have close to enough money to flag down a taxi.

He weighed his choices, standing in the bright lights of the depot as the other passengers around him filtered past, hopping into waiting cars or flagging down taxis as they left.

If memory served him right, there was an ATM he could use to withdraw some cash a fifteen minute walk away, then he could come back to the depot, hop in a cab and get a ride home.

On the other hand, home was a forty five minute walk in the other direction. Would it really be worth it to take a thirty minute round trip hike just to get some money and then get driven home, or would it just be more worthwhile in the long run to just walk that fifteen minutes extra and get home without having to pay a cent?

John laughed, the answer was easy.

Mind made up, he turned and left the depot, preparing to walk through the chilly winter air back to his parents' house.

He'd texted them on the bus ride back, letting them know that the trip was delayed by a couple of hours and promising to text them again when he was back in town and on his way home.

As he strolled at a leisurely pace through the dark streets on the outskirt of the central business district and watching the shops slowly give way to apartments and flats, he pulled his phone out, intending to send a message to his parents to let them know he'd arrived safely and was walking home.

He wasn't aware of the quiet presence of a street mugger behind him, of the pale glint of moonlight off the thug's knife as he finished typing his message and hit send.

 

* * *

 

It takes Eren by surprise, when he finds his eyes drawn to a photo in the obituaries section of his newspaper one day.

He doesn't immediately recognise the face of the handsome youth in the photo, nor does he recognise the name as any he'd ever known personally before, but his heart sticks in his throat the same way it did the first time he had seen Levi.

 _Jean Kirschtein_ , his brain supplies helpfully, and he could feel his heart stop as the realisation comes crashing down upon him.

Eren attends the funeral in the little town two hours away, Levi by his side.

They stand silently in the background, far back enough that John Nichols's family and friends do not converse with them, do not spare them more than a momentary glance, but close enough that it was clear they were here for the young man in the coffin who had died well before his time.

Eren forces himself to keep his tears in check, biting back the sorrow he felt for the passing of a man he, by all rights, should not even know, should not even remember. Biting back the sadness for the death of a man he had never met in this lifetime. Forces himself not to cry as the coffin is lowered into the ground and soft earth heaped over it, just as he knew that Jean surely did not cry at his own funeral, over twelve hundred years ago. Just as he knew that Jean surely kept his composure as they set Eren's body aflame, swathed in green fabric emblazoned with the Survey Corps emblem.

Neither he nor Levi say a thing throughout the entire service, and it is only later, when Eren is driving Levi and himself back to the city, when the younger man finally speaks.

“Who was he, Eren?”

Eren smiles sadly, stifling the choked amalgamation of a sob and a bark of laughter that had stuck in his throat. His shoulders shake and he flicks on his indicator lights, signalling his intent to merge into the highway.

“Someone I used to know when I was much, much younger.”


End file.
